


Discontinuity

by SharpestRose



Category: Batman (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-29
Updated: 2011-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-20 20:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's out of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discontinuity

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired in equal measures by Kevin Smith, Jim Starlin, a couple of recent story arcs in Teen Titans, and an episode of the Toon Titans. I think that alone deserves a warning.

Aw no no no no _no_ , the last thing Jason needs tonight is for this wannabe cat burglar to get away with a museum display. Bruce is already in a snit fit over that guy with the broken nose earlier.

Jason darts around a corner and skids a little on the waxy floor of the corridor, regaining his stride and sprinting after Balaclava Man. Who's running for the window, antique still clutched in one gloved hand. It's a weird little doohickey with two clock faces and an hourglass and a whole lot of shiny brass ornamentation; just the kind of thing that's worth a whole lot of money for no good reason Jason can see.

The guy breaks the window as he jumps through it, and Jason drops after him a few seconds later.

A split second after his palm pushes off the window frame, Jason sees that, oh shit, there's a goddamn _vortex_ hanging in mid-air six feet underneath him. He scrabbles to grab at something, but only manages to make his fall less controlled as he hits the swirling cloud-shape.

-

Ow. Mother _fuck_.

Jason rubs the back of his head and sits up gingerly. He must've dropped through just in time for that jackass he was chasing to whack him over the head.

His communicator's dead, but that's no great shock. Tripping through that whatever-it-was would probably be enough to fry all the electronic crap Bruce carries, let alone a communicator and a wristwatch.

Jason stands up slowly, leaning against the wall of the museum and hoping like hell he doesn't have a concussion. For all he knows, he's woken up in some other world or something. Last thing he needs is a brain injury.

"There!" he hears, and then there's a bang and he's flat on his stomach. Oh, right, reflexes. He's ducking from... two cops shooting at him? What the hell?

"It's Robin," the one who fired says as Jason rolls behind a dumpster that smells like it's full of rotting meat. And this is supposed to be a _nice_ neighbourhood.

Jason sure does love Gotham's definitions of 'nice'.

"No, wait." The other cop sounds hesitant. "Are you sure it's him? That costume's wrong. Something's off."

"Who the hell cares?" the trigger-happy one snaps, sending off a shot which clangs against the dumpster. Jason makes a dash for the next corner, hoping that it's too dark for them to get a good fix on him. "And even if it's not Robin, it's a Mask. Any Mask gets the same treatment. You forgotten what happened to Maloney and Williams?"

There's no hesitation in the volley of shots which follows Jason as he makes it into a side-road. He scrambles up the fire escape at the end of a line of run-down townhouses, then swings on a grapple line back up to roof level. There, he runs for his life.

Only when he's dead certain that there's nobody on the street below, not even winos, does he drop back down.

"Great. Bozo the burglar and me've wound up in Stupid World," he mutters, tucking his cape around his arm and smashing the glass panel on a clothing boutique's doorway with his elbow. This sorta place's not upmarket enough for burglar alarms. The large 'No cash kept on premises!' sign in the window probably helps cut down on break-ins, too. Pretty much nobody's down on their luck so bad they need to rip off cheap jeans and paper-thin t-shirts.

Jason pulls a couple of twenties out of a pocket on his belt and leaves them on the counter, reminding himself to thank Babs for the idea of carrying cash when in-costume. He's left at least twice what the clothes are worth, plus the cost of a replacement pane of glass for the door. He hopes it's enough to put him square with karma.

There's nothing much he can do about his shoes, but jeans two sizes too big fall low enough to mostly cover them, and the rest of the suit fits into a ball within a second t-shirt inside a plastic bag. It's not exactly debonair, as disguises go, but if it keeps the Stupid World cops from making Swiss cheese out of him Jason doesn't care so much about fashion.

He's never going to bitch about rough patrols being 'not his night' ever again. Right now, he's most likely gonna see the sun come up over someplace not his _planet_ , which is easily ten times worse than just a crummy evening.

He flags a cab down and gives the driver the address of the Manor, hoping that he's still got enough on him for the fare. Jason sometimes did a little cash-in-hand waiter work for the pizza place near where he lived in Crime Alley, and he makes a point never to stiff anyone on payment or tips if he can help it. It's stuff like that which separates being a wise-ass punk from being a straight-out jerk.

Turns out he's got just enough to cover the trip, so Jason gives the driver a grin and jogs up the driveway. The Manor is -

A different building.

He lets himself swear for a couple of minutes at the foot of the stairs. For some reason that seems naive and stupid now, Jason expected everything to be normal _here_.

What if Batman's a bad guy in this world, and that's why the cops were shooting? Or, even worse, what if Bruce isn't Batman at all? What's he gonna think about some teenager showing up and claiming to be his partner?

What if... oh god, oh shit... what if Dick's still Robin here?

Slowly, terrified, Jason walks up the stairs to the front door and rings the bell.

Half a minute or so later - Jason counts under his breath, but he always counts too fast and his watch is still fried - the door opens. Alfred's holding a can of knockout spray ohforcryingout _loud_ -

"Whoa!" Jason takes a step back and holds his arms out in front of himself, palms splayed out. The bag holding his uniform falls to his feet. "Hold on a second!"

Alfred doesn't move, but since he doesn't spray the can Jason thinks it's probably a victory.

"Look, I know this sounds crazy but I'm supposed to live here. Something's gone messed up and the whole world's wrong." Jason breathes in and tries to stay cool, but Alfred's looking at him like he's an enemy. A bad enemy, like Two-Face or the Joker or something. "My name's Jason Todd. You're Alfred Pennyworth, and you're -"

"I am quite aware of my own name and identity. The truth of yours remains to be seen."

Jason bites back another string of curses. Alfred always gives him a Look when he resorts to words like that when pissed. "I'm... okay, this is like one of those 'how do I know you're really who you say you are' deals, right?"

"It would take a miracle for you to convince me that you are Jason Todd." Alfred's voice sounds like it could cut diamond. Into a million tiny pieces. Which he'd then throw in someone's face. Jason, who for once isn't making up even little white lies like 'teachers never give homework on Fridays anymore' or 'I didn't kick that guy in the balls so hard he threw up, he did that all by himself', feels like he should apologise for not telling the truth.

"A miracle? Like turning coffee into decaf? Because you do that all the time. I have to get off the school bus two stops early to get a cup on the way in the afternoons, because I know you never put the jar of the real stuff where I'll find it."

Being able to banter in a tight spot is pretty much rule number one in the Robin handbook.

Alfred doesn't shift expression. "Whatever threat you think you pose, do not think that I will hesitate a second to neutralize it. No matter what face you wear."

"Okay, now you're fucking freaking me out."

"That makes us even, then."

"Alfred, _please_ , talk to me. I think I'm maybe dying of a brain haemorrhage right now, okay? Just chill out. Why would someone pretend to be me, of all people, for cripes sake?"

"What was your mother's name?"

Jason sighs in relief. "Thank God. Some sense. I was starting to think I really had fallen into Stupid World. Her name was Catherine."

"Your birth mother."

"Huh? I just _told_ you. Catherine Todd. Cate Johnson when she was a kid. Will you put the stun gas _down_ now, please?"

"No. Your father?"

"Willis Giuseppe Todd. Went by Willis or Joe. Can you at least stop glaring at me? I feel like I've got peanut butter on my face or my shirt's on inside out or something."

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen as of the week before last. A bunch of kids from school came over and you and Bruce pretended that you didn't know we spiked the fruit punch. I figured it was because the vodka was high-grade, from David's dad's liquor cabinet. No way you'd let me get away with drinking cheap booze."

Alfred closes his eyes, his shoulders slumping like all the air's been let out of him. He lowers the can of stun spray. After a few seconds he looks at Jason again, and his eyes are shiny with tears.

"Okay, now you're _really_ scaring me. Alfred, what's up? You look like you've seen a -"

Jason never claimed to be the brightest crayon in the box, but when he finally gets something he gets it all at once. "Oh, fucking _hell_. I'm _dead_? You're goddamn _shitting_ me. What the _fuck_?"

"Your penchant for italics is as robust as ever, I see." And Alfred gives him a wobbly little smile, as if swearing a blue streak is suddenly cute, instead of a hanging offence.

"No. No way." Jason shakes his head. "This is too weird. I'm... "

He turns and runs. Doesn't know where he's going, and doesn't really care. Away, away, away from the house that's wrong and the Alfred that's wrong and the whole world that's wrong, wrong, wrong.

-

Three hours later, Jason's sitting on the balcony of an unoccupied hotel room, knees drawn up and his hair plastered to his head from the steady rain that's decided to show up and make this night absofuckinglutely perfect.

Batman lands in a crouch at the other end of the balcony, cape sending off an arc of droplets as it settles.

"Nice weather, huh?" Jason asks, voice a little snuffly.

"Jason."

"There was a kid. He was OD'ing. I stopped him, and he freaked out. Said I was a narc or, even worse, a Mask undercover. What the hell happened to this town? I leave you alone for five minutes and -"

The laugh comes out weird and high, and Jason shakes his head. "Sorry. I'm having a fucked-up night."

"Jason," Batman says again, and moves to kneel close by, resting his arm around Jason's shoulders so that the cape protects them from the rain at least a little. Jason leans in to the touch, taking a second's comfort in some shred of familiarity. Then he starts noticing the tiny differences in posture and muscle, and wants to laugh again.

"Back before your last birthday, I went to go get you a card. I had to ask for Alfred's help in the end, because I'm retarded at stuff like that. But I went to look on my own, the first time," Jason tells Bruce quietly, looking out at the lights of Gotham through the rain and feeling uncomfortable enough that he's totally sure that he's alive. "There was this weird one of a crowd of people all milling around. One of them's got this comic-book thought bubble coming out of their head, saying 'what if I'm not the main character?'.

"It was so random and crazy that I couldn't stop thinking about it. And tonight, after I ran away from the house, it kept popping into my head. Because at first this was all like, my grim dark future. Not mine, because I'm a _corpse_ , but you know what I mean. 'Learn from your mistakes, reckless Robin, or this is what's to come'."

"But then you started thinking about what this world was for those in it. That your perception of it as a hypothetical doesn't match their experience," Batman says.

"You got it." Jason breathes out in a shuddery sigh, glad of the warmth inside the cape. He's chilled down to the bone.

"It wasn't a hard line of thought to follow."

There's a waver, held mostly in check, under Batman's words. Jason turns as best he can, so they're almost face-to-face.

"You're not going to start crying, are you? 'Coz it's not like I'm keeping things together right now, and if we're both freaking then Alfred's gonna make us drink herbal tea and go to bed early."

Batman laughs quietly at that, and tightens his arm around Jason's shoulders. "I'll do my best."

"I'm so scared, Bruce."

Jason knows he's not supposed to do the name thing when they're out in Gotham and Batman's in costume, but it's not like anybody's around to hear and he has to say it. He's so scared he wants to crawl under his bed with a flashlight, like back when he was a really little kid and still had a bed. Just lie there and breathe as quiet as possible and wait for the monsters to come.

"I know," Bruce answers, but Jason figures he probably really means _me, too._

-

Jason's still sopping wet when they get back to the Cave, but Alfred's there waiting with one of those huge fluffy towels that Jason's never gonna get used to and never, ever gonna get tired of.

"Uh, thanks. Sorry about dripping everywhere," Jason says, and Alfred gives a smile that's not so much like he saw a ghost as it is like he saw an angel.

Jason smiles back, feeling a little uncomfortable with all the attention. Then he catches sight of something colorful behind Alfred, and completely forgets to be self-conscious.

"Oh, wow. This is mine? This is my memorial?" Jason gazes at the case and at the Robin costume inside it. "This is _awesome_."

"You like it?" Bruce asks, cowl pushed back from his face. He looks older... no, tireder. Worn out. "There's been some debate about whether you'd approve." He gives Alfred a look which might as well be 'I told you so' in giant neon letters.

"Are you kidding? It's... well, okay, it's kind of screwed up, I guess, but..." Jason stares at it again. "I'm Robin forever. Even _Dick_ wasn't Robin forever. Hey." He turns away from the memorial to look at Bruce and Alfred again. "Where is Dick? Are he and Starfire still together? Do they have obscenely gorgeous babies yet? Can they even have kids?"

"Dick was injured recently. He's recovering," Bruce answers. Jason shakes his head.

"Man, this future's like an obstacle course. I'm dead, Dick's laid up... I'm scared to ask about everyone else."

"Things are never easy."

"Got that right." Jason rakes a hand back through his hair and winces when he's reminded of the bump on his crown. "Anybody got an Aspirin?"

"Let me look at that." Alfred shepherds him towards a chair.

"Bruce, he's _fussing_ ," Jason whines as he's pushed down and made to bend his head forward. "I'm dead, and he's _still_ fussing."

Bruce just smiles.

-

Jason knows that sooner or later he's gonna have to sit Alfred and Bruce down and have a big Talk to them about what he's gotta do next, but he's okay with it being a 'later' rather than a 'sooner'. Being happy to see him seems to have made them both temporarily forget that he's a bit of a jerk from time to time (never without justification, and only rarely, but still. Sometimes he's a jerk, and he knows it), and it's always nice to feel appreciated.

It's not like he can rock up to his old school, and he hasn't even bothered suggesting that he's still fine with going out on patrols with Batman - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that Bruce and Alfred would flip the hell out if he even breathed in the general direction of the idea - so there's not much for him to do, except get in Alfred's way and mooch around the manor.

The new building's pretty cool. When he asked why they tore the old one down, Bruce gave him a really worried look. Jason's getting tired of worried looks.

"I've seen my suit in a glass case. Seriously, I think the space time continuum has been as messed with as it can be. What more harm can you do?"

So Bruce told him about the earthquake, and about Gotham afterward. He even told Jason a little bit about Cassandra, the new Batgirl, and his voice sounded really proud while he talked about her. Jason hopes she's still gonna show up, when he goes home and makes sure things go like they should've.

He's going to give that whole 'dying young' deal a miss, for starters. Old and boring the shit out of a bunch of bratty grandkids, that's the way to go.

-

On the third day he's sitting in the least formal of the rooms downstairs, reading a magazine and deciding that celebrities are just as boring and stupid in the future as they are in the present, when he sees something near the window.

At first he thinks it's just his imagination. He hasn't been sleeping well, which is no great surprise, and the sunlight's pretty bright.

But then there's another movement, and Jason squints so he can see better against the glare. The fall of a yellow cape, the edge of a sharp smile, a curl of dark hair -

He scrambles off the couch and over to the doorway in a matter of seconds, shaking so hard his vision blurs.

The shape that's almost a figure seems to look at him for a moment, the nearly-smile widening before it vanishes into the air.

Jason sits down on the floor with a thump, concentrating hard on not passing out or wetting himself.

"Jason? Master Jason, what's -" Alfred asks, his feet clicking at a worried, hurried pace as he approaches. "Jason?"

"I think I just saw... me," Jason says incredulously, still staring at a point beside the window. "My ghost."

-

It figures that Bruce knows just who to call when he hears about what happened. Jason wonders what it would take before Bruce didn't have a clue what to do.

Alfred makes a pot of tea and Jason doesn't even bother with the usual complaining he does about how tea tastes like socks only grosser. The three of them sit at the table and stare at the woodwork. It'd be peaceful, if things were different.

They're gonna spend the evening with Green Arrow, of all people, but Jason's still too freaked out to bother wondering about that particular piece of this universe.

He's _dead_. Really, truly, forever dead. His body's in some supervillain's den as a conversation piece. His ghost's hanging out in Wayne Manor, which isn't really Wayne Manor anymore seeing as how the original building collapsed when Gotham was decimated by an earthquake. Oh, and the police all want to kill Batman and Robin.

Jason's just about had it with this week, all things considered.

Bruce rests his hand on top of Jason's and squeezes a little. He doesn't try to offer any comforting words, which Jason's grateful for.

-

Jason spends most of the rest of the afternoon sitting on the floor of the Cave and staring up at his uniform in its case. It doesn't seem like such an awesome thing to have around, now.

When he hears stuff going on upstairs, he scrubs his eyes with the back of his hand and stands up.

Oliver Queen and girl a little older than Jason - a gorgeous, tough-looking girl a little older than Jason - are standing in the foyer with Bruce and Alfred. Jason tries to look a little less like he's spent the day freaking out. If he was feeling a little more like himself, he'd probably say something like "You know, where I'm from, they don't build Speedys like that."

As it is, he just sorta smiles a little at the guests and feels really tired.

"Jason, why don't the two of you go look at the grounds?" Bruce asks. "While I explain things."

"Fine with me." Jason nods. Bruce'll start crying within two minutes, and that'll probably start him off as well, and regular tea's gross but chamomile's even grosser. Jason has learned better than to get really upset where Alfred can see, if there's a kettle in the area.

Looking at the grounds pretty much means wandering around, because trees and grass don't exactly hold worlds of untapped fascination for Jason.

"As you probably just heard, I'm Jason."

"Mia."

"Can I call you Speedy?"

She smiles happily, then looks down at her sweater and jeans and shrugs. "Doesn't make sense to when I'm not dressed up. So who're you when you're not Jason?"

"That's a kinda zen question, isn't it?"

"You know what I mean."

Now it's his turn to shrug. The evening's cool and there's a slight breeze, and it's nice just walking in the fresh air.

"I'm Robin, I guess. Or I used to be. I guess I still am. I've kinda... been away for a while."

"Ah." Mia gives him a long look, like she's inspecting him for something. "You didn't die in the eighties, did you?"

Jason blinks. "Uh. No." And, since it seems pointless to lie in the face of a direct question like that, he adds, "Just a couple of years ago. Three. Maybe four. I'm not sure exactly."

"That's good. When Ollie came back, he thought iMacs were the work of evil aliens. Culture shock's such a bummer of a way to start being alive again."

He's too worn out to be surprised at anything anymore. "I don't think I've been brought back. I guess it was time travel or something. I'm going home soon, and I'm fixing this. It shouldn't be the way it is."

Mia makes a noncommittal noise.

"What? You don't think it's a good idea? You don't think I can do it?"

"I think life is life. You don't get a brand new second chance from square one. You just work with what you've got, as long as you can."

"I haven't had a _first_ chance yet, okay?" Jason answers snappishly. Then he sighs, and slumps. "Sorry. I've had a really lousy day."

"'s all right. I've seen way bitchier behaviour from costumes much older than you."

They walk in quiet for about a minute before Jason breaks the silence.

"You ever had to deal with the idea that you might not grow up? For about a second, I thought I could handle it, and then my brain just started going 'no, no, this can't happen to me, this can't be true'."

"'I haven't had a chance to do right by a kid yet, in all the stuff my parents got wrong'. 'I've got so much that's not finished inside me'," Mia offers quietly.

Jason nods. "Yeah. Sucks, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. But, like I said. You work with what you've got. It's the best way to cope."

"Thanks for the advice."

"No problem."

She gives him a little, thoughtful smile. Jason smiles back, and hopes that he'll still get to meet her when the world's put right.

-

When they go back to the house, Jason and Oliver are left alone in Bruce's study while everyone else makes themselves scarce. They sit in two of the big armchairs that always make Jason feel like he's about five years old. Trust Bruce to find furniture that looms.

"I hear you saw your own ghost."

Jason nods. "Yeah."

"I met myself in Heaven."

For a second, all Jason can do is blink, but then he laughs. It's great to have a reason to laugh. "Okay, you win that one."

"I saw you there, too."

Jason's laughter trails off and he rubs at his face with his palms. "I guess that should comfort me, huh? That I made the cut?"

"If I were you, that wouldn't be my first reaction," Oliver answers.

"I think, at this point, I'm fresh out of reactions. I could probably manage another freak-out or two, but that's about it."

"It gets easier. The really strange stuff stops feeling so strange."

"Strange stuff like iMac computers?" Jason asks as blandly as he can manage. Dead or alive or whatever, it wouldn't be right to let a chance at a dig like that pass by.

Oliver smirks. "She told you about that, huh?"

"I think it was meant to make me feel better about my own deal."

"Did it work?"

"A little, I guess." Jason shrugs. He's not sure what he's supposed to say. "I guess I'm glad I'm not the only guy this has happened to."

"Between you, me, and the big blue, we could start a support group."

"Huh?"

"After your time. And mine, for that matter. Never mind."

"I'm getting really tired of hearing that. How am I supposed to fix stuff if I don't even know what goes wrong?" Jason scowls, knowing that the expression makes him look like a total brat but not really caring. Why can't he get a straight answer from anyone about anything?

"'Fix stuff'?"

"Well, I can't stay here, can I? Won't it mess up the universe or time or whatever?"

Oliver's brow furrows and he gives Jason a long look before speaking. "Have you talked to the head of Team Spooky about this yet?"

"Are you kidding? He'd chain me up! No way he'd let me get away with it."

"You were planning on finding a way to time-travel, without any help, and then leave without telling him you're going?"

"It's not gonna matter anyway. I'm not going to let the world turn into this. It can't." Jason clenches his jaw and blinks hard and wills himself not to get worked up. "Didn't you ever feel like that? That there had to be some way to undo everything that had turned out wrong?"

"The past is the past."

"But it's _not_ the past!" Jason shouts, standing up. "It's my present! This is the future, and the future's not set, _ever_."

"Calm down."

Jason knows that Oliver's being way calmer and quieter than he's usually known for being. Probably out of sympathy or something like that. It just makes Jason feel angrier, and even more lost than usual. Why can't anybody just act normal around him? Mia's the only one who hasn't looked at him like -

No goddamn way he's finishing that thought with _like someone died_. Fuck that.

"No, I won't calm down. This is bullshit. I'm _not_ letting this happen!"

"Jason."

Hell.

Jason turns, and has to hold back a flinch when he sees Bruce standing in the doorway.

"What'd you hear?" Jason asks, uncurling his hands from the fists they've balled themselves into at his sides.

"Enough." Bruce says, and sighs. "Perhaps you and Mia had better go," he tells Oliver, who nods.

"Bruce, I'm -" Jason starts to say, because he really is sorry. It was a crummy way to break the news.

"Let's go downstairs," Bruce cuts him off, turning away without another word.

Jason swears at himself in his head for a while. There doesn't seem to be any choice but to follow.

-

"When you told me and Alfred the story of Anson's Taktgeber -"

"The what?"

"The weird brass clock doohickey," Bruce clarifies, turning to look at Jason as they descend the stairs down into the Cave. "I checked the museum's records. It's never been stolen."

"Wait, so -"

"This isn't the same reality as the one you know as home."

"Are you serious? That means this isn't what's going to happen! Because if it's stolen where I'm from, then things are already different." Jason says happily, his bad mood blending into the air and vanishing as easy as smoke. "It means that -"

"You could stay."

The words are barely more than a whisper, and Bruce isn't looking at Jason. He's staring at the case. "There would be no continuum disruption if you didn't return."

"Bruce?"

"He would recover in time... the Bruce you know. It would be easier to move on from a beloved friend and ally who ran off into the night than it was to..."

Jason can't help but look at the case as well. He thinks of the ghost upstairs, the thin-air smile and the memory of a cape.

"It means that I can't fix it for you, doesn't it? You're the main character here. And I can't change it by going back and doing things right, because that'd happen somewhere else."

It's stupid and fucked up and unfair. Jason wants to punch something.

Bruce bows his head. "Yes."

"Well..." Jason tries to think of what to say. " _Fuck_."

There's a split second of smile on Bruce's face. He still won't look at Jason.

"Would you have told me, if you hadn't overheard? If you didn't know I was planning to find a way back?"

"I don't know." Bruce shakes his head. After a second he echoes himself in a whisper. "I don't know."

"I'm sorry." It seems the only thing to say.

"So am I," answers Bruce.

-

Jason stays up until almost dawn. He feels like it's only fair that he thinks really hard before making any decisions.

He knows what he's gonna pick in the end, but at least he'll be able to know that he made the choice after considering what he might've had the other way.

It's lame, but Jason even misses the way Alfred glares at him for forgetting to wipe his feet at the door.

Next time it happens, he's gonna say 'thanks', instead of being a pill about it.

-

When Batman gets home, Jason's waiting for him.

"Before I go, I wanna get some names off you. All the kids you took on after I died. So that I know who to go looking for."

"I didn't 'go looking' for any of them. They came to me." Bruce pushes his cowl back off his face.

Jason's not surprised that Bruce doesn't mention the fact that Jason's made up his mind to leave. Bruce must've assumed it's what would happen.

And that's pretty sad and messed up and horrible, but it's also true, so Jason doesn't say anything about it either.

"Yeah, but maybe they're not gonna do that in a world where I don't die, right? So spill."

"Perhaps, in different circumstances, it's not what they want. I wouldn't impose that one someone who didn't want it."

"You just said that they came to you. Pick one or the other. Either they're only in this because of how things go after I die, or it's what they were born for."

"I don't think this is a good -"

"Bruce," Jason interrupts. "Quit hedging. Gimme some spoilers for the future."

Bruce closes his eyes and lets out a long, slow breath. "Tim Drake. He'll be almost thirteen years old in the time you return to."

Jason scrawls the name on his notepad. "Got it."

"Stephanie Brown. Fourteen and a half. I've already told you about Cassandra. Be kind to them, Jason. They need people who care. Much more than they know."

"I won't let you down. I promise."

"Jason..."

Bruce's voice cracks. Jason drops the pad and pen, and lets himself be hugged so tightly he can barely breathe.

-

Jason's pretty sure that there's not going to be a single day in the rest of his life when he's not going to remember how Alfred looked when it was time to say goodbye.

He's never really thought before how much someone loving you is just a different way of saying that you have the power to hurt them more than anything else can.

Bruce wants to come with him to the museum, but Jason can't stop imagining what it'd be like for Bruce to come back to the Cave, and the case, after losing Jason for a second time. It hurts to even think about.

"Just pretend I'm out late causing trouble," he tells them both. "I know how snitty you get when I do that."

They don't look comforted.

"It's like you said, Bruce. Better to think about someone vanishing off into the night, right?"

Bruce doesn't say anything. Just gives a little nod, and looks down.

Jason takes a deep breath and slings a satchel, with his Robin suit and his notes about who to look out for inside, over his shoulder.

"Right. Um." He presses his lips together and blinks. "Thanks. I'm sorry. Don't forget me. Don't miss me too much. I'm. Yeah. Um. Thanks. For..."

Jason gives up, and raises one hand in a half-assed wave. Like he's heading out to school or whatever. Something normal and boring.

"See you."

-

He cuts a hole in one of the third-floor windows and slips into an area given over to an elaborate exhibit about the tombs of the pharaohs. The burglar alarms are higher-tech than what they were in the museum Jason remembers, but he's dodged past worse before.

The brass clock thing is in a glass display case in one of the smaller rooms on the next level down, and Jason lifts it free as carefully as he knows how. It'd be a serious bummer to fumble it, after all that. He'd have to head back to the house and explain that he dropped his ticket home and busted it.

Bruce and Alfred would look so happy.

Jason closes his eyes for a second, swallows, and forces himself to focus. He has to work out how to make this thing do whatever it is that it does, before anyone realizes that he's here.

Maybe he needs to turn it upside down, or turn the hands on the clock faces, or -

Or, okay, it could start thrumming in his hands and making weird whirring sounds. He feels so woozy for a second that he stops worrying, but then the whirring and the strange warm vibration stops as well and he has a moment of panic. If he's busted it, he's going to be seriously pissed off at himself.

Then the clock thing makes a cartoony 'sproing!' sorta sound, like it's impatient with him and wants him to pay attention. Jason looks hard at it, trying to work out what he's supposed to do, and notices that his watch has started ticking again.

He didn't want to stop wearing it, even though it seemed well and truly fubar'ed by his trip through an interdimensional rift. But if it's working again now, maybe that means...

He looks up. The museum looks normal.

Normal for him, that is.

Normal for the world he knows.

"Oh, thank... whoever," Jason mutters. He heads for the exit, shoving the brass doohickey into his bag as he goes.

Maybe Bruce'll let him put it on display in the Cave.

-

 _Epilogue  
Three years later_

"Maybe we could do this another time..." Mia says, making no move to step over the threshold of the room. Ollie puts a hand on her back and shoves.

"Hi. I'm Speedy," she manages to mumble, instantly the center of a ring of excited, noisy, brightly costumed teenagers.

The confusion goes on for a few minutes and Mia stammers replies to whatever questions she manages to hear the general gist of. Then there's a sharp whistle and everyone goes quiet.

A girl with blonde hair loose around her face takes two fingers out of her mouth. "That's better. Let's try that again, okay? Hi, I'm Wonder Girl, but since I don't have a secret identity you might as well just call me Cassie. You've probably guessed that the green leopard headbutting your legs is Beast Boy. That's Cyborg, and the one in the S-tee is Superboy. But, again, you probably got that."

"Pleased to meet you all," Mia says when Cassie pauses for breath, giving them a little wave.

"And those two over there are Robin and Dragonfly - D's not really a Titan, so don't worry about getting on his bad side. He shows up whenever he thinks there might be free food, and then claims he has to go fight crime when it's time to do the washing up - and that's Raven, and Kid Flash."

"Once again, hi?" She's not sure what else to say. She gets a chorus of 'hi's and 'good-to-meet-you's in reply.

"Welcome to the team," the one in dark green - Dragonfly - says.

"I think saying that line's reserved for those of us who are _on_ the team, Jason," Raven answers in a dry monotone.

"Ever had a friend with a really irritating older brother who just doesn't get the hint to buzz off?" Cassie asks Mia.

"You're all killjoys." Dragonfly's tone is breezy. "No wonder Robin likes hanging with you so much."

"Hey! Just because I'm capable of making the occasional non-freak friend -"

"You hang out with a leopard and a chick who still hasn't forgiven me for the one time - the _one time_ , two _years_ ago - that I asked her why Wonder Girl doesn't wear a Wonder Bra."

Robin sighs in a way that tells Mia that he's rolling his eyes behind his mask. Cassie glares a glare that probably could literally shoot daggers if she wanted it to, and Beast Boy turns into an alpaca and makes a rude noise.

"See? Freaks, the lot of them," Dragonfly tells her. "But they're pretty cool. To people who aren't me, at least. You'll be fine."

"Hope so," she answers, and smiles.


End file.
